TNAG-1188-FCO40-1490-Implications-for-Hong-Kong-of-changes-in-the-British-nationa-1982 — Page 56

PS/PUS

CONFIDENTIAL

SELECT COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS (FAC): FALKLAND ISLANDS ENQUIRY

1.

In his minute of 29 June (not to all) Mr Butler said that the Foreign Affairs Committee had reconfirmed its intention to hold an enquiry into the Falkland Islands conflict, They would be sending us some questions, but no decision had yet been taken on the terms of reference for the enquiry. There were differing opinions in the FAC as to whether the enquiry be retrospective or forward looking.

2.

The Committee Clerk has now sent us a list of no fewer than 36 questions, the text of which I attach. Apart from two questions (numbers 24 and 25, on which see below) virtually all the questions are retrospective A great number of them will inevitably cover the same ground as the Government's own enquiry.

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3. I have pointed this out to the Clerk, who agreed that there was likely to be much overlap. He confirmed that the Committee had not yet decided on the terms of reference for their enquiry, and that this decision would be taken next Monday, 12 July. then the Committee would presumably have seen the terms of reference of the Government's own enquiry which might influence their decision, In answer to my question as to why the Committee had, in these circumstances, decided now to send us such a long list of wholly retrospective questions, the Clerk said that the Committee had to show themselves active in this area. They had drawn up the questions some time ago, and a number of people had been asking the FAC what they were proposing to do (the Defence Committee having started their own enquiry about the Falkland Islands some time ago), The Clerk also hinted that the Committee might want to smoke out the FCO about which questions we would be prepared to answer and which not. He emphasised that no dead- line had been set for answering the questions, except for para- graphs 24 and 25. He thought that we would be well advised to hold up action until the Committee had met next Monday, added that a lot of the questions had been suggested by one member of the FAC, Mr Spearing.

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4. I asked the Clerk whether the questions were to be made public. He said that the press had been told that questions had been sent to the FCO, but there was no present intention of telling them what the questions were. Members of the FAC had been asked not to say more to the press themselves. He had noticed no press interest so far.

CONFIDENTIAL

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